Stay in touch

You are here

Defend the Consumer Bureau

STANDING UP FOR CONSUMERS IN THE FINANCIAL MARKETPLACE—For more than 20 years, Consumer Program Director Ed Mierzwinski has helped us stand up against big banks and credit card companies.

A Consumer Cop On the Financial Beat

You work hard for your money. You should be able to save, invest and manage your money without fear of being trapped, tricked or ripped off by the institutions you are trusting with your financial future.

That’s why we need strong consumer protections on Wall Street. And from the 2008 economic collapse, we know how big of an impact those institutions can have on our economy when they play fast and loose with our money. It made it clear: Americans need a watchdog agency on Wall Street, devoted to creating and enforcing fair, clear and transparent rules to protect consumers.

So in 2010, we helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to be our consumer cop on the financial beat.

The CFPB Gets the Job Done

Despite the fact that the CFPB is not widely known, they’ve been hugely successful at working for consumers, returning nearly $12 billion to more than 29 million people who were ripped off by companies that broke the law … in just six years.

The CFPB holds big banks, debt collectors and lenders accountable. Here are a few examples of some of the cases the CFPB has taken on to protect consumers:

When American Honda Finance used discriminatory pricing to rip off African-American, Hispanic and Asia/Pacific Island borrowers who paid too much for car loans, the CFPB returned $24 million to these consumers.

The Department of Justice and 47 states joined the CFPB in a $216 million action against JP Morgan Chase Bank for illegal debt collection practices affecting over half a million Americans.

When it was discovered that Wells Fargo employees were opening unauthorized debit and credit accounts using their customer's information, the CFPB fined Wells Fargo $100 million for fraud.

The CFPB fined Equifax and TransUnion — two of the three largest credit reporting agencies — $5 million for selling inflated credit scores to consumers that were different from ones actually used by lenders and returned $17 million to those harmed by the deception.

In addition, the Consumer Bureau has helped level the financial playing field, educating veterans, senior citizens, new homeowners, college students and low-income consumers on how to keep their finances secure.

The Consumer Bureau's success should be earning it applause in Washington. Yet instead of cheering on the Consumer Bureau, the Trump administration and some members of Congress are pushing to weaken or even get rid of it.

Tell Your Senators: Stand Up For Consumers

We can keep our consumer cop on the financial beat — but only if we can convince enough senators to stand up and be counted as Consumer Champions, and stop any bad bills that try to roll back or eliminate consumer protections.

Even with the Consumer Bureau on the job, many Americans are still at risk of reckless financial practices that threaten their homes, their retirement savings and their overall well-being. That’s why we don’t simply need the CFPB to exist: We need to make it even better, by strengthening commonsense consumer protections.

In the wake of the Great Recession, we helped spearhead the creation of the Consumer Bureau. Now, we need your help to stand up for consumer protection once again, and defend the CFPB from those who would weaken or eliminate it.

Ahead of three changes to what Equifax is offering consumers following its breach of 145 million consumer records, Travel Buddy is urging consumers to get free credit freezes with Equifax by January 31st if they haven’t already.

When a tired TV show desperate for viewers goes over the top with wacky plots, it is said to have "jumped the shark." Unfortunately, even after the Wells Fargo debacle and even as bank profits return to record levels, the "viewers" of bank deregulation demands -- members of Congress -- still have an unslaked appetite for over-the-top, outrageous proposals to take consumer and financial system safety cops off the bank beat. Meanwhile, the public -- by wide, non-partisan margins, wants to keep the cops on the beat.

Since the massive Equifax data breach, three things, among others, have been made very clear: (1) A credit bureau breach is worse than other breaches, because the bureaus hold a vast trove of our personal information useful to identity thieves; (2) The bureaus treat us with disdain, as products, not customers; (3) The credit bureaus are largely unaccountable to consumers. Our statement in suppport of the Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Mark Warner "Data Breach Prevention and Compensation Act" to hold large credit reporting agencies (CRAs) - including Equifax - accountable for data breaches involving consumer data."

This month, Scott Tucker, a payday lender who used his proceeds to fund a LeMans racing team, was sentenced to 16 years in jail on federal racketeering and other charges. Last fall, his former business partner Charles Hallinan, known as the Philadelphia Main Line "godfather" of payday lending, was also convicted of federal racketeering charges. Tucker and Hallinan's main business model? Their claim that their payday loan enterprises were for the benefit of Native American tribal partners and therefore subject to tribal immunity. The authoritative public interest law firm Public Justice speculates: "Tribal Immunity" may no longer be a Get-Out-of-Jail Free Card for payday lenders." It's about time.

Pages

We join National Consumer Law Center, Americans for Financial Reform and other leading groups in a release commending the appointment of senior Pentagon official Colonel Paul Kantwill (U.S. Army, Retired) to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Office of Servicemember Affairs. The CFPB plays an important role in protecting servicemembers, veterans and their families from financial predators.

An analysis of new government data by Travel Buddy Education Fund found that big banks made $8.4 Billion in overdraft fee income in the first three quarters of 2016, up nearly 4% from the same period in 2015. Since the beginning of 2015, all banks greater than $1 Billion in assets have been required to report fee data quarterly and are included in the study.

Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a report shining a spotlight on contracts between banks and colleges to promote debit cards on campus. Students continue to get hit hard with overdraft fees attached to their campus bank accounts. According to the report, nearly one in ten consumers in the population with student accounts incurred 10 or more overdrafts per year, paying, on average, $196 in overdraft fees alone. Below is a detailed analysis by US. PIRG's Chris Lindstrom, who championed the protections that the CFPB is reporting on. This report is one more example of why we need a strong CFPB.

In the wake of the recently-announced Yahoo data breach -- apparently the largest security breach ever, exposing the personal information of 500 million consumers -- PIRG offers consumer tips, demands that Yahoo provide free security freezes to affected consumers who could be at risk of "phishing" schemes to commit fraud on existing accounts or open new fraudulent accounts. We also ask: Why did it take Yahoo two years to notify the public?

We've joined leading privacy and consumer advocates in a news release sharply critical of a supposed "best-practices" report released today by the Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) concerning privacy and facial recognition technology. While the report purports to be the product of a "multi-stakeholder" process, all the leading privacy and consumer stakeholders dropped out of the skewed proceedings many months ago, as the release explains. It concludes: "There is much more lacking in these “best practices,” but there is one good thing: this document helps to make the case for why we need to enact laws and regulations to protect our privacy."

Pages

More than 44 million Americans have student loan debt, in total owing more than . Finding the right student loan and deciding on the right payment plan can be complicated. Many borrowers also have trouble paying – more than 10 percent of student loans are at least 90 days delinquent. Fortunately, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – America’s first federal agency dedicated to protecting Americans in the financial marketplace – has resources to help.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis with one mission: to protect consumers in the financial marketplace. But how exactly is it protecting consumers from mistreatment? We explain.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is the first federal agency devoted to protecting consumers in the financial marketplace. In 2016, the CFPB held Wells Fargo accountable for unfair treatment of its customers.

In the 1990s, my grandmother lost $60,000 to a financial scammer who took advantage of her age and vulnerability. A lucky, and perhaps illegal, phone call from her bank flagged the problem to the family. Today, thanks to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, I think it’s likely the problem would be noticed and stopped sooner.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau receives more complaints about than about any other topic. The complaints are submitted by consumers who reach out to the CFPB for help resolving problems with debt collectors and other problems in the financial marketplace.